Loving the Unloved: Bat Rays

It was a long time ago, but I remember my mother clearly: “Ugh, sea robin. Throw it back!” So I did.

We were fishing for fluke, a flatfish like a large flounder or a small halibut, but intermittently we would hook into sea robins; they’re ugly sculpins that “sing” with a staccato series of “urks.” This one was urking all the way as I sailed it into the air and back into the Atlantic. It’s my first memory of “trash fish.”

Ever meet one of those little kids who always asks “why?” That was me. I loved to hear how processes unravel, how things work — and I soon developed a perverse joy in seeing at what point the adults’ knowledge ran dry.

It would always be the same: There’d be a look shot in my direction, a stutter or a hem-haw. Then it would be clear to both of us that they really did not know. One day I asked why sea robins weren’t good to eat. I got that same reaction. Sea robins were trash fish, and that was that.

Only it wasn’t. For more than 35 years I’ve been questioning people’s choices on what is and what is not a good fish to eat. And in that time it’s become apparent that what I call “fish prejudice” is a nearly universal condition. It helps define the difference between “us” and “them” among ethnic, racial or regional groups. Fish prejudice is almost never about flavor. It’s about identity.

Few fish fall into this category more strongly than do sharks, skates and rays. When I was a boy, no one I knew kept any of these creatures. And of the sharks, only mako shark was considered fit to eat — and even then it was a second-class fish.

I distinctly remember adults around me complaining that the swordfish they just ate “must have been mako shark,” as if mako is any less wonderful than sword; it isn’t. And God forbid someone would actually consider eating thresher shark, or dogfish, or any of the various skates or rays we’d occasionally catch. Strictly verboten.

Yet many of those same adults would happily order skate wing in brown butter at a fancy French restaurant. It took me a long time to figure out why. But eating fish outside one’s group is apparently OK if you are in their turf, even if that turf is a restaurant in a strip mall. Think of an American eating skate wing in the 1970s as a cultural adventurer. You’ve probably had the same urge at an “ethnic” restaurant: “Maybe I’ll try the (insert food that is unusual to you here).”

These days those barriers are in tatters. Food television has done a lot to show culinary xenophobes that they just might be missing out on something good. America’s cultural melting pot is another huge factor. It’s growing increasingly rare for someone to stick solely within his or her own group, especially at the table.

Photo courtesy of Wikimedia Commons

But still fish prejudice remains, especially among anglers. And I am not immune. Case in point: Myliobatis californicus, the Pacific bat ray. I’ve caught more than a few of these critters since I moved to California, but had never kept one.

Absolutely everyone I knew — across ethnic groups, mind you — said they were inedible. “Mud marlin” is the ray’s nickname, as they often live in muddy areas and fight like hell when you hook them. I suspected they were inedible because, like all members of the shark family, they process urea through their skin. So the flesh of a poorly handled shark, skate or ray can smell like piss, or worse, like ammonia. Not good eats.

You defeat this problem with sharks by gutting them on the boat, minutes after you catch them. Do this, get the fish on ice, and you will have one of the best-tasting fish in the ocean. I’ve done this with about a dozen different species of shark, too, so it seems pretty widespread. With skates and rays, you only eat the “wings.” With the skates I’d caught back in New York and New Jersey, when you catch one you kill it and slice the wings off right then and there.

So it nagged at me why a bat ray must be bad eating. Something wasn’t clicking. I knew the prejudice was horseshit once I learned that bat rays eat clams. They will occasionally eat other things, like other mollusks and crabs and shrimp, but they are primarily eaters of clams. Remember: You are what you eat, no matter where you live. And every other clam-eating fish I’ve ever caught tasted wonderful. I needed to get over this thing with the bat ray and just eat one.

So as we motored out into the San Francisco Bay last week, I told RJ, “If we catch a bat ray, I want to keep it.” RJ, who I’ve been fishing with many times, tolerates my eccentricities and was game for it. We were fishing for leopard sharks, so there was a good chance we’d connect with a mud marlin.

It was my friend Rick who caught one. As soon as he hooked it, RJ and I knew it was a ray. They are sullen, willful fish that tear line off your reel and stay on the bottom. No head shaking, no frilly runs. Just power. Lots of power. Rick muscled the ray in, however, and it was a nice one, about 10-12 pounds.

Once onboard, RJ whacked the ray and sliced off the wings. He handed them to me and I immediately realized another reason why bat rays are reviled as food: They’re slimy. Skates have skin like sharks: Smooth as silk one way, rough as sandpaper the other. Rays cover themselves in a protective layer of mucousy slime, and slimy fish are almost universally hated by humans. The picture was becoming clearer.

PREPARING SKATES and RAYS

I know how to deal with rays and skates and slimy things, so filleting this bat ray was no biggie.

Start with the slime. Skates don’t have this issue, but rays do. You can remove it in one of two ways: Get a handful of coarse salt and scrub the skin with it in the sink, or just scrub the skin with a scrub brush, also in the sink. It will remind you of that scene in Ghostbusters, but get over it. I will salt the skin when I am leaving it on for poaching, and simply scrub it when I am removing the skin.

If you want a skate or ray wing filleted, you need to slice the meat off the center line of cartilage that runs down the center of the wing. Once you do that you can skin the fillet like any other fish. Lots of people skip this step entirely and poach the wings; once the meat is cooked, the skin and cartilage slips right off.

Skates and rays also have a few other oddities you should know about. For starters, unlike most other fish, skates and rays need to be aged in the fridge a couple days. This firms up the meat enough so you can fillet it without it falling apart. What’s more, a skate or ray’s muscle structure is weird: It looks like wide-wale corduroy. The “grain” of the skate wing all radiates out from where the center of the skate once was.

Skate or ray wings should be brined. The brine draws out any stray smell of ammonia or urea that might be in the wing. A properly handled wing will not have this smell at all, but brining also seasons the meat and helps keep it tender when you cook it. Skate wings, which have no fat in them, are notorious for being dry. If you want, add a little vinegar to the brine, too.

Once you’re prepped your wings, cook them in one of a few ways — dusted in flour and sauteed, deep-fried, or poached. All are ideal. Skate or ray wing will not hold up on a grill, and I don’t like them baked or broiled. But that’s just me.

Photo by Holly A. Heyser

The classic recipe for skate wings is that French method, sauteed in brown butter and served with capers. So I did that with the bat ray. I have to admit that all along the way, from the deck of the boat to meat on the fork, I was hyper-aware of anything that might be “off” or smelly or unpleasant about this fish. But all along the way, the bat ray proved to be just like a regular skate wing.

I cut some with my fork and looked at it. A little darker than the Atlantic skates I’m used to. Weirdly, it looked a lot like chicken thigh; same color and texture, only a lot softer. I took a bite. Tender like flounder or sole, meaty like a striped bass, and absolutely free of any bad aroma or flavor. It was just like a skate wing. Only it was a bat ray.

My head had told me it was going to be like this, but I’d fallen prey to the universal disdain for this fish. Peer pressure had, for years, trumped what I knew in my heart to be so. I am glad I was wrong. And the next time I hook up with a mud marlin, you can be damn sure he’s coming over the rail.

Skate or Ray Wing with Brown Butter

Rays and skates are interchangeable in the kitchen. "Skate wing" is a term of art in the seafood world; you never know whether you're eating skate or ray. But if you get them yourself, rays are slimy, while skates have smooth skin. Some people like their skate wings on the bone, with the cartilage left in. That's fine, just move it aside on the plate once you eaten it. This is a very simple recipe, so use the finest ingredients you can get: The best butter, the best vinegar, the smallest capers. It makes a difference. I like to serve this with bread and a green thing alongside, in this case my sea bean salad.

Prep Time15mins

Cook Time15mins

Total Time30mins

Course: Main Course

Cuisine: French

Servings: 4people

Author: Hank Shaw

Ingredients

4skate or ray wing fillets

1/4cupkosher salt

4cupscool water

Flour for dusting

6tablespoonsunsalted butter,divided

1/4cupsherry or champagne vinegar

1tablespoonhoney

2tablespoonssmall capers

Instructions

Mix the salt and cool water until the salt dissolves. Submerge the skate or ray in the brine and put in the fridge for 1-4 hours.

Turn the oven to 200°F and set a large baking pan or casserole dish inside. Heat 2 tablespoons butter in a large saute pan over medium-high heat. Dredge the skate wings in the flour and shake off any excess. Lay them in the pan so they are not touching each other; you may need to cook the skate in batches. Turn the heat down to medium and fry the skate wings until they are golden brown, about 4 minutes. Carefully flip the skate and cook for 1-4 minutes on the other side, depending on how thick they are. If you've never cooked skate before, it cooks more slowly than other fish, so give it a few more minutes that you would a comparable fish.

When you are done with the first batch of skate, set them in the oven to keep warm and repeat the process with the rest of the skate.

Once the skate is cooked, Pour off any butter from the pan and wipe it off with a paper towel. Add the rest of the butter and set it over medium-high heat. Swirl the pan and let the butter cook until it has browned, then add the vinegar, capers and honey. Swirl to combine and let this boil 1 minute. Put a piece of skate on each person's plate and pour the sauce over. Serve at once.

Hank Shaw

Hey there. Welcome to Hunter Angler Gardener Cook, the internet's largest source of recipes and know-how for wild foods. I am a chef, author, and yes, hunter, angler, gardener, forager and cook. Follow me on Instagram and on Facebook.

i will give this a try, but i tried this with a 60lb ray last year and it was just the worst tasting fish i’ve ever had. I didn’t remove the wings right away (about 1.5 hours later) so maybe that was the difference. I’ll give it one more try, but i’m skeptical

Travis: Yes, that would affect it a lot. Also, do it with a smaller ray, maybe 20 pounds tops. Smaller rays are better tasting. You will want to kill the ray, remove the wings immediately, and get them on ice.

IVE ALWAYS HEARD THEY WERE NO GOOD GROWING UPIN THE BAY AREA, BUT LAST WEEK WHILE FISHING I CAUGHT ONE AND DECIDED TO WACK THE WINGS OFF IN THE BOAT AND GIVE THEM A TRY. WE TOOK THEM HOME ON ICE AND CLEANED THE NEXT DAY. LOOKED A LITTLE FUNNY AND DECIDED TO COOK LIKE ABALONE OR CLAMS AND WOW IT WAS DELICIOUS. REMINDED ME OF A CROSS BETWEEN FISH,ABALONE, AND CLAMS.. WHY DO MORE PEOPLE NOT EAT THESE??

I have eaten one bat ray, and one skate. With both, I felt kind of guilty because the yield was so low. The bat ray was about 40 pounds, the skate about 70. I think I got about 5 pounds of usable meat off the bat ray, maybe 10 off the skate. And it felt like it took me about 3 hours to get it.

Based on this, they all get a pass now. I put them in the bucket of “tasty, but not worth the effort.”

I may take another crack based upon your tip about “aging” the meat. I cleaned mine same day, and when I had the cartilage and skin off, the meat just fell apart. Still tasty, good for fish cakes, but the grains of the flesh would not stay together.

My fishing partner yesterday caught a large still to be determined bat ray or skate. It had to be about 50 lbs. We let it go because I didn’t know what to do with him. To me it was a sting ray although I didn’t see a stinger just about a 3′ tail that looked like rebar. It had about a 4′ wing span. We didn’t let it in the boat, got the hook out of his shoulder without really touching it, so I don’t even know what it felt like, slimy or otherwise. Was a little afraid of the tail because of stories about sting rays. It was pretty docile in the net when we finally got him in after a boat chasing half hour battle that saw him dive twice under the boat. One of the best battles of my life and I only handled the rod for a few minutes, what power. Thanks for the post and will try to learn more. Will look for a video of how to cut off the wings to know for sure how close or far from the body. Was kind of happy to let this one go after such a glorious fight. Thought we had hooked a shark in the tail. Thanks again and it was a pleasure reading your post. Bookmarked your site.

Excellent… growing up in France, my mom used to make ray in blackened butter, always poaching the fist first, skin, bones and all. Then she would remove the skin and bones and sautee the meat in butter, with capers. Yummy! I now live on a boat and here, in Panama, catch at least a ray a month. The new way? SMOKED ray! Cut the wings, scrub the slime off, remove from the bone, brine (soy sauce, water, salt, brown sugar, garlic, ginger, lime) for 4 to 8 hours, then cold smoke for 4 hours (nance or mango wood) … YUM!

Out here in Malaysia, they smear a sambal on top of skate wings, wrap them in banana leaves, and grill them on an oiled griddle (it’s called “ikan pari”). Do you think your bat ray can take the same treatment?

Matt: Very few fish are not safe for eating… in moderation. That said, what’s safe for me is different from what’s safe for your wife and son. Here is a good guide to eating fish in the San Francisco Bay: http://oehha.ca.gov/fish/nor_cal/2011SFbay.html

Take this as a guide, not as gospel. The warnings are a little overwrought and are VERY conservative. But they are good to know, so you don’t think it’s OK to eat sharks and surf perch every day…

I have enjoyed reading your posts about the lesser know fish. I was curios though do you ever consider the pollution contained in fish. You were very in depth about wild ginger and its possible dangerous side effects but I haven’t seen were you talk about it with fish. I know most of the concerns is with young children and women in child bearing age. My wife just had our first son and I did a lot of research and found that besides being a very touchy subject (especially in pregnancy circles) a lot of fish are considered not safe for eating.

Great post, Hank! I love when you try new species that aren’t commonly eaten. Why don’t you eat the cartilage, though? I love the texture. I had a happy moment at a Meatpaper issue release party once when I overheard a fashionable young lady say “I love cartilage!” then bite into a pig ear.

This recipe reminds me of why I like this blog so much! Thanks for taking the time to show us how to make Bat Rays delicious, I’ll definitely try the next time I hook up with one. Especially now that I know what to do with it.

Robert: Rays mostly eat clams, which do not carry a high mercury load. That said, They ARE long-lived and can bioaccumulate mercury over time. I probably would not serve them to really young kids or pregnant women, and I am not about to make them a mainstay of my diet.

I do believe that when prepared correctly, they are at least good, if not delicious. However, living in the SF bay area, i choose not to eat bay rays due to the very high amounts of mercury in them. They are bottom feeders that spend their entire lives in the heavily polluted bay. Rays scavenge the floor eating whatever they come upon, including bait fish that have died from mercury poisoning. The only think i would consider eating from the SF bay would be migratory species like stripers or halibut. I understand its ok in monderation, i believe its one serving per month of fish from the bay. Good Eats my friend.

A couple of years ago, I went on a fishing trip that was hosting a group of local chefs for a Slow Food event. We all caught well-known So. Cal. eating fish–kelp bass, sand dabs, sculpin–and someone brought up a wolf eel. Odd, fearsome-looking fish (not a true eel), nobody knew anything about it, and nobody wanted it! Except adventuresome me. I even offered to share…a boat full of chefs, and no takers. Go figure. Well, it was definitely their loss, as it turned out to be one of the best fish I have ever eaten (there was lots of info on the internet about how to cook it, as it’s quite well-regarded in some parts of the world). I’d take wolf eel over the standard catch any day!

When I was a kid, while fishing from a dinghy I caught the largest (I think) member of the sculpin family: a cabezon. It was about 20 -25 pounds–think mammoth bullhead– and caused quite a sensation. Most locals had never seen or even heard of one, but I had heard they were a by-catch that was sometimes sold as ‘blue lingcod,’ for the slight tint to the flesh. I cleaned it out and it turned out to be a tremendous eating fish. That was 32 years ago and I have never caught one since, but I have eaten every sculpin I have caught since. As a lifelong saltwater angler, I bet I’ve caught a thousand dogfish…I know they are reputedly delicious if you can deal with the urea. I have heard the milk soak too. I wouldn’t have the faintest idea how to clean one though. That’s a post I’d love to read, Hank.

We don’t have bat rays here, but we do have lots of species that get thrown back (like that sea robin). When everyone told me that false albacore was inedible, I had to find out for myself. I did, and it was. Or so I thought. Don’t suppose you’ve found a way to cook one, have you?

We’ve never pulled up a ray, but we get dogfish pretty regularly — I look forward to trying the next one.

Your posts about things that nobody thinks you can eat are some of my favorites.

Hank, I know exactly what you mean. Here in Australia, carp is probably our most notable pest fish, and no-one eats them. But if they’re brined properly, and allowed firm up for a few days, they’re a great eating fish!

Will definitely give this a try next time I go halibut fishing. I still remember a meal I had with my buddy when our wives were out of town. We bought some skate wing, had some wine, cooked it up and sat down for our “treat”. We both took a bite, chewed it a bit, then stared at the other guy to see what he thought. Almost simultaneously we both spit the bites out. The ammonia taste was terrible! A quick order for pizza was placed.

I’ve heard that milk is another marinade that will remove the ammonia/piss taste.

Regarding stipers in Sacramento. We had a killer season this year. A guide I know had a party of five out. They had five stripers on at once (the second time in a week it happened). Just for the hell of it he picked up three rods, one after another, and got a total of eight on at once. All were released and the fishing continued!

I’ve also caught bat rays inshore in the SoCal harbors, some upwards of a hundred pounds, and my Filippino friends say you can also punch out a circular cut that is similar to scallops. I’ll definitely try this recipe soon. It reminds me of the prejudice against coots in the waterfowl community, which can get really extreme.

The skates off the coast of Maine are supposed to be delicious, but protected. However I did not know that “skate wing” might actually be ray. We fish very deep water for sharks here, Any idea what our ‘clam’ eating ray would be and where we would find it?

Clicked on RJs site — you have stripper out there? We are catching schoolies in the Kennebec now and should start landing some monsters soon. The guides are predicting a strong season after a few really weak ones.